XXXVI.

That very night, while gentle sleep
  The urchin eyelids kiss’d,
Two stern-faced men set out from Lynn,
  Through the cold and heavy mist;
And Eugene Aram walk’d between. 
  With gyves upon his wrist.

SONNET.

FOR THE 14TH OF FEBRUARY.

No popular respect will I omit
To do thee honor on this happy day,
When every loyal lover tasks his wit
His simple truth in studious rhymes to pay,
And to his mistress dear his hopes convey. 
Rather thou knowest I would still outrun
All calendars with Love’s,—­whose date alway
Thy bright eyes govern better than the Sun,—­
For with thy favor was my life begun;
And still I reckon on from smiles to smiles,
And not by summers, for I thrive on none
But those thy cheerful countenance complies: 
Oh! if it be to choose and call thee mine,
Love, thou art every day my Valentine.

THE DEATH-BED.[10]

[Footnote 10:  The Englishman’s Magazine, August 1831.  This magazine was a venture of Edward Moxon, the publisher, but had a career of only seven months.  It is memorable, however, for including, besides the above and various papers by Charles Lamb, poetical contributions from Tennyson and Arthur Hallam, and also for containing the review by the latter of Tennyson’s first volume of poems, published in 1830.  The beautiful stanzas of Hood’s appear here, as far as I have discovered, for the first time.  The date of their composition remains unfixed.  Hood’s son was under the impression that they were written on the death of one of his father’s sisters, but supplied no evidence bearing on the question.]

We watch’d her breathing through the night. 
  Her breathing soft and low,
As in her breast the wave of life
  Kept heaving to and fro.

So silently we seem’d to speak,
  So slowly moved about,
As we had lent her half our powers
  To eke her living out.

Our very hopes belied our fears,
  Our fears our hopes belied—­
We thought her dying when she slept,
  And sleeping when she died.

For when the morn came dim and sad,
  And chill with early showers,
Her quiet eyelids closed—­she had
  Another morn than ours.

ANTICIPATION.[11]

[Footnote 11:  These impressive, if rather morbid, lines seem to have been hitherto overlooked by Hood’s editors, and are here collected for the first time.]

“Coming events cast their shadow before.”